Elsie’s first task was to prepare a large-scale drawing of the southern part of Hanover Island, as set forth in Admiralty Chart No. 1837 (Sheet 2, Patagonia), which is the only trustworthy record available for shipmasters using the outer passage between the Gulf of Penas and the Straits of Magellan. It was a simple matter to fill in the few contours given. The neighboring small islands were shown in reasonable detail, but the whole western coast of Hanover Island itself consisted of a dotted line and a solitary peak, Stokes Mountain, the height of which could be estimated and its position triangulated from the sea. Even Concepcion Straits on the north and the San Blas Channel on the south were marked in those significant dotted lines. The coast was practically unknown to civilized man. One of the last fortresses of the world, grim, inhospitable, it guarded its secret recesses with crag and glacier and reef-strewn sea. It was borne in on the girl, while she worked, that the chiefest marvel in her present condition was the triumph of science over nature in its most hostile mood. The _Kansas_ boasted all the comforts and luxuries of a well-equipped hotel. Seated at the same table as herself was a skilful sailor, using logarithms, secants and cosecants, polar distances and hour angles, as if he were in some university class-room. Near the door, enjoying the warm sun, Boyle was stretched on a deck-chair, while Christobal was offering a half-hearted protest against his patient’s manifest enjoyment of the first cigar he had been able to smoke since a Chilean knife disturbed certain sensory nerves between his shoulder-blades. The every sociableness of the gathering was a paradox: the truth lay with the ice-capped hills and the ape-like nomads who infested the humid forests of the lower slopes. She stole a glance at Courtenay. He was so keenly engaged on the business in hand, so bent on achieving accuracy in his figures, that she chided herself for her morbid reverie. Then she wondered if he ever gave a thought to that promised wife of his, who must soon suffer the agony of knowing that the _Kansas_ was overdue.